9am Welcome and acknowledgement of Aboriginal land
9.30am Feature session
Capitalism's crises and our solutions11am – Workshops
Reihana Mohideen, feminist and labour activist in the Philippines, leader of the newly formed Party of Labouring Masses
David Spratt, co-author of Climate Code Red
Michael Lebowitz, Centro Internacional Miranda, Venezuela, and author of Build it now: Socialism For the 21st Century
Evo Morales and Bolivia's Indigenous revolution – Federico Fuentes, editor of Bolivia Rising and co-author of "MAS-IPSP: a political
instrument which emerged from the social movements"
Iraq and Afghanistan: The US' unwinnable wars for oil – Green Left Weekly journalist Tony Iltis
Working-class responses to the economic crisis - Jody Betzien, activist in the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union;
Roger Annis, activist in the International Association of Machinists in Vancouver, Canada, and delegate to the 2008 Canadian Labour Congress convention
West Papua today West Papuan activists and supporters
Marx and Engels and Darwin: Evolution and Historical Materialism - Ian Angus, author of forthcoming book on Darwin and materialism
The Politics of Che Guevara – Resistance activist Duncan Meerding
Understanding Marxist economic theory – Graham Matthews, DSP national executive member and Green Left Weekly journalist on economic issues
1pm – Lunch
2pm – Feature session
Obama, US imperialism and the “war on terror”
Salim Vally, spokesperson for Palestine Solidarity Committee (South Africa)
Rob Stary, civil liberties lawyer
Pip Hinman, DSP national executive member and activist in Stop the War Coalition, Sydney
3.30pm – Workshops
Public ownership and workers’ control – Dave Kerin, heading up initiative to establish worker-run cooperatives to build solar panels;
and Michael Lebowitz on the experiences and lessons of self-management in Yugoslavia and Venezuela
Sexism and the system: A rebel’s guide to women's oppression -
Reihana Mohideen, feminist activist from the Philippines;
Kavita Krishnan, national secretary of the All India Progressive Women's Association;
and Jay Fletcher, Resistance activist
Challenges of building a climate change movement - David Spratt, co-author of Climate Code Red; Simon Butler, Green Left Weekly journalist on environmental issues and People for a Safe Climate activist; and John Rice, Adelaide Ecosocialist Network
Boycott Israel campaign – Discussion hosted by Salim Vally, involved in the recent actions by South African dockworkers to boycott Israeli ships, with activists in the BDS campaign against Israel
Political struggle in Timor Leste: The global, regional and local context (Fri 3.30pm) – Mericio Juvinal Dos Reis and Tomas Freitas,
both socialist activists involved in Timor’s clandestine movement against Indonesian occupation and initiators of Luta Hamutuk (Fight Together), a research and advocacy institute focussing on economic issues
Understanding the economic crisis: why stable capitalism is not possible - Jamie Doughney, senior researcher at the Work and Economic Policy Research Unit at Victoria University of Technology
Why be a Marxist today? – Resistance activist Katherine Bradstreet and Brianna Pike, DSP Sydney organiser
5.30pm – Feature session
Confronting the climate change crisis: an ecosocialist perspective
Ian Angus, founder of the Ecosocialist International Network, editor of Climate and Capitalism and associate editor of Socialist Voice (Canada)
Dick Nichols, author of Environment, Capitalism and Socialism, Socialist Alliance national co-convenor
Introduced by Stuart Rosewarne, co-editor of Capitalism, Nature, Socialism
7.30pm Dinner with music, poetry and film footage from struggles around the world
SATURDAY, APRIL 11
9.30am Feature session
The specter of 21st century socialism
Michael Lebowitz, Centro Internacional Miranda, Caracas, author of Build it Now: Socialism For the 21st Century and Beyond Capital: Marx's Political Economy of the Working Class, winner of the Isaac Deutscher memorial prize (2004)
11am – Workshops
Class struggle in Zimbabwe – Munya Gwisai, International Socialist Organisation Zimbabwe
Perspectives for a Broad Left Alliance of Social and Political Forces in Guatemala - Raul Molina Mejia, long-time Guatemalan human rights defender, Adjunct Associate Professor of History at Long Island University
Climate refugees and the “overpopulation” debate – Kamala Emanuel, DSP national committee member
Philippines: Developments on the left – Reihana Mohideen, long-term activist in the women's and labour movements in the Philippines, involved in the recent formation of the Party of the Labouring Masses, and formerly vice-chair for international affairs of the socialist labour centre, Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (Solidarity of Filipino Workers)
Haiti today: five years of UN military occupation – Roger Annis, Canada Haiti Action Network, visited Haiti on a human rights
fact-finding mission in 2007
Production and consumption as a source of global warming: Beyond capitalism and toward a democratic ecosocialism - Hans Baer,
Development Studies Program and Centre for Health and Society at the University of Melbourne, author of Global Warming and the Political Economy of Health
Understanding the economic crisis: peculiarities of the 2008-09 crisis – Dick Bryan, Department of Political Economy, University of Sydney
1pm – Lunch
2pm – Feature session
Building a worker-green-community alliance for sustainability
Tim Gooden, secretary of Geelong and Regions Trades and Labour Council
Dave Kerin, convenor of Union Solidarity and heading up initiative to establish worker-run cooperatives to build solar panels
Mel Barnes, Resistance activist in the Stop the Pull Mill campaign in Tasmania
3.30pm – Workshops
From Invasion to Intervention: Indigenous resistance in Australia – Sam Watson, Aboriginal leader from Brisbane and Socialist Alliance national spokesperson on Indigenous rights; and Mitch, inspiring Arrernte/Luritja woman, author, poet and artist, who is fighting the federal radioactive waste dump proposed for her country.
The struggle for transgender and same sex marriage rights in Australia – Ben Cooper, Community Action Against Homophobia and active in defense of queer refugee rights; Ryan Radclyffe Hall, A Gender Agenda, involved in the Campaign for Civil Unions in the ACT, currently active around trans rights; and Farida Iqbal, Democratic Socialist Perspective and Resistance, activist in the Campaign for Civil Unions in Canberra, and former national queer officer for the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations.
The left in Malaysia – M. Saraswathy, founding member and deputy chairperson of the Socialist Party of Malaysia, and long-term
organiser of plantation workers, urban settlers and women workers in Malaysia
Crisis and resistance in Africa – Salim Vally, long-time anti-apartheid campaigner in South Africa; and Soubhi Iskander, Sudanese Communist Party
Experiences of left unity: the New Anti-Capitalist Party in France and Socialist Alliance in Australia – Sam Wainwright, international
observer at the NPA founding congress; and Sue Bolton, DSP Melbourne secretary and Socialist Alliance Victoria.
El Salvador after the elections: the struggle continues – Aristides González, Ismael Alvarado and Rafael Pacheco, activists from the
Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front in Australia
History of Resistance and the DSP – Resistance activist Stuart Harrison and Stuart Munckton, DSP national executive
5.30pm – Feature session
Latin America: revolt, revolution and socialism in the 21st century7.30 pm Conference Dinner and Fiesta
Abelardo Curbelo, veteran of the Cuban revolution, central committee member of the Cuban Communist Party, currently Cuban ambassador to Australia
Nelson Davila, founding member of Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement (MBR-200), currently head of Venezuela's diplomatic mission to Australia
Luis Bilbao, long-time socialist activist on the Latin American left, participant in the construction of the United Socialist Party of
Venezuela and in the formation of the Union of South American Nations
Introduced by Lisa Macdonald, Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network national co-convener
Celebrating revolution: 50 years of Cuban Revolution, 10 years of Venezuelan Revolution
With toasts by Cuba’s ambassador to Australia, Abelardo Curbelo, and Venezuela’s charge d’affaires, Nelson Davila
SUNDAY, APRIL 12
9.30am Feature session
Presentation by Le Vinh Thu, director-general, Department of Southeast Asia, South Asia and South Pacific Affairs, External Relation Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, and Le Gia Kien, senior expert, External Relation Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam.Neoliberalism and resistance in the Global South Kavita Krishnan, Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist), editor of Liberation, the CPI-ML’s magazine in English, and national secretary of the All India Progressive Women's Association; andMericio Juvinal Dos Reis, executive director of the Luta Hamutuk Institute; and Munya Gwisai, International Socialist OrganisationZimbabwe
11am – Workshops
Cultural dissent: the politics of art and resistance - Ian Angus on Racism, resistance and the blues; Jill Hickson from Actively Radical
TV; and Phil Monsour, progressive folk singer
Capitalism, agribusiness and sustainable agriculture – DSP members Trish Corcoran, Kate Stockdale and Nick Soudakoff
The People’s Democratic Party in Indonesia and the 2009 general elections - Vanessa Hearman, Indonesian-born activist based in
Australia; PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne researching the the mass killings and imprisonment of members and sympathisers of the Indonesian Communist Party in East Java between 1965-1971
Has racism always existed? – Resistance activist Dom Hale
The Great Depression, the ALP and communist organising: Lessons for today – DSP national executive member Dave Holmes
Understanding the economic crisis: what now? – Dick Nichols, Socialist Alliance national co-convenor; Dick Bryan; and Jamie Doughney
The Cuban economy and Latin American integration – Tim Anderson, lecturer in political economy at Sydney University just returned from Cuba, and producer/director of The Doctors of Tomorrow
1pm – Lunch
2pm – Feature session
Revolution in Venezuela - communal councils, the workers’ movement and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela
Luis Bilbao, participant in the construction of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and in the formation of the Union of South American Nations, founding editor of the Latin America-wide monthly magazine América XXI, and author of 16 books, most recently Venezuela in Revolution: the Rebirth of Socialism
3.30pm – Workshops
Young socialists fighting back – Kavita Krishnan, former president of the All India Students' Association (1999-2006); and Resistance
national co-organiser Jess Moore.
Sustainable cities: the transition to public transport, accessible housing and liveability – Ben Courtice, DSP environment movement
activist
Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah and the right of Palestine to exist – Issac Shuisha, Israeli-born Palestine solidarity activist; and DSP member Rupen Savoulian
Argentina: the key to the region - Luis Bilbao, Union of Militants for Socialism, Argentina, author of recently published Argentina as the key to the region
Imperialism, nationalism and financial collapse: the Canadian experience – Roger Annis, associate editor of Socialist Voice, Canada
The Tamil struggle for self-determination - Brian Senewiratne, Sinhalese activist involved for more than four decades in exposing the
human rights abuses perpetrated by the Sri Lankan government and Sinhalese militias; author of various books on the Tamil struggle that have been banned in Sri Lanka
Building a revolutionary alternative in Australia today – Resistance activist John Hawtin; and Ruth Ratcliffe, DSP Adelaide organiser
5.30pm – Feature session
World at a crossroads: Fighting for our future
Peter Boyle, Democratic Socialist Perspective national secretary
M. Saraswathy, deputy chairperson of the Socialist Party of Malaysia
Daphne Lawless, Socialist Worker (New Zealand) central committee member and editor of Unity journal
Ian Angus, Socialist Voice (Canada)
7pm Resistance gig with beats from Dhopec and others
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World at a Crossroads - Fighting for Socialism in the 21st Century
Easter 2009, April 10-13, Sydney Girls High, Sydney, Australia
A conference that brings together socialist and progressive activists and thinkers from around Australia, Latin America, Asia-Pacific and North America to discuss the urgent questions of our time.
Sponsored by Green Left Weekly.
